


Sacrifice

by lonerofthepack



Series: Taken 'verse [4]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: "Take me instead", "run!", Abuse, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, M/M, Major Character Injury, Minor Character Death, Past Abuse, Psychological Torture, Ritual Sacrifice, Torture, Whumptober 2020, for the greater good, implied permanent injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:27:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26898928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonerofthepack/pseuds/lonerofthepack
Summary: "Gellert," Percival said, and pushes every scrap of will towards the boy, occlumency a pitiful half voice from what had been once, and pressed it all behind a demand that the boy run.He's been playing so carefully for months--if the boy doesn't take this chance to run like he's told, Percival will have shown his hand and blown any chance of ever escaping. There's some manner of ritual on the other side of all this, and it will tie his life to Grindelwald's use as sure as the collar binds him to his whims.Part of the Taken 'verse, exploring the age-old trope: what about Nurmengard?
Relationships: Original Percival Graves/Gellert Grindelwald
Series: Taken 'verse [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1951963
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Sacrifice

**Author's Note:**

> For the Greater Good: “Take Me Instead” | “Run!” | Ritual Sacrifice
> 
> (I have no defense. Please heed the tags.)

There's blue fire everywhere, and the collar around his neck aches with all the ambient magic as wizards step through, dark shapes whisked away to Nurmengard proper for further shows of loyalty, or devoured, with screaming that cuts out in a way that makes his ears ring and his breath choke up in his throat.

There's a boy, and he's staring.

"Credence," Grindelwald says, in that tone that Percival hears in his nightmares. "Won't you come to me?"

"Mister...Mister Graves," the boy whispers, gaze darting, and didn't seem to realize the danger of the blue flames.

"Gellert," Percival said, and pushes every scrap of will towards the boy, occlumency a pitiful half voice from what had been once, and pressed it all behind a demand that the boy  _ run _ . Preferably toward the auror and his leggy backup dancing around up in the heights of this makeshift amphitheater, trying to work out how to counter the fire, how to save a witch who was in terrible danger of burning away.

He's earned a glance, and plays to it, shifting his body to show his discomfort, to catch and hold Grindelwald's gaze. Like a bird delivering the theater of a broken wing to draw attention away from its nest.

"Gellert, take me in—…Instead." 

He's been playing so carefully for months--if the boy doesn't take this chance to run like he's told, Percival will have shown his hand and blown any chance of ever escaping. There's some manner of ritual on the other side of all this, and it will tie his life to Grindelwald's use as sure as the collar binds him to his whims.

He'll give it up, to save this boy, to give the auror dancing around in the stands half-a-chance to _do something_ , but to throw it away -- it's a tremor that wraps icy hands around his diaphragm. 

Grindelwald is watching him— better Percival than a boy who looks torn between raging and weeping, who wrings his hands and folds on himself like something frightened— his head cocked like some predatory bird about to mangle its prey. "Percy, darling, have I made you  _ jealous? _ "

He sounds about as delighted as Percival thinks he can be — there's still madness in his gaze, but it's hot for once, pleased and greedy in the way only an ideological ascetic can be.

"Am I not enough for you?" He murmurs, and closes his eyes when Grindelwald's hand slides against his cheek, as burning hot as always. Leans into it, tired in truth as well as to manipulate. Watches from under low-swept eyelashes. 

There is little more effective at tempering the pain as playing to Grindelwald's yearning for a desperate, needy lover— or whatever it is exactly that Albus-fucking-Dumbledore wasn't and had refused to be for him as a young man. Something worn soft and frightened, hungry for approval and utterly dependent on the madman's goodwill. 

Which, of course, as a hostage, Percival is.  Gellert prefers to pretend otherwise. 

Well. He likes to pretend to a point. 

Where that point will lie any given day is always a bit up in the air.

"Or is this the younger creature you'll replace me with?" He asks, dares to make eye contact over Grindelwald's shoulder. _Run!_

The boy runs. Percival waits for the storm-- Grindelwald's fury is a terrible, _cutting_ thing, as slow to build as a thunderstorm and as painful as a lightning strike, leaving him in ruin even as the skies cleared.

The bolt doesn't come--it doesn't always, this doesn't mean he's safe. 

Grindelwald croons assurances that no, _of course_ Percival will never be free of him, his favorite, so lovely when he's good.

Percival closes his eyes again and doesn't bother to quell his shivering.

He shakes and shakes and shakes as his magic is taken, is ground up with the magics of a dozen other sacrifices. A bit comes back, fouled and awful, like drinking blood. Coating him, stinging, despite his attempts to scramble back. It will ensure that his magic is never not Gellert's for the taking, even if he heals from this enough to be _worth_ using. 

He is sure he's screamed--his throat feels shredded— but can't remember hearing anything but the rush of blood and magic.

Whatever core of him that had been magic feels utterly shattered. Wounded in a way that feels like broken ribs skewering his every breath.

None of the other sacrifices are scooped up by Grindelwald, though, and borne back to his finely appointed cell, white on cream on unrelieved white. He doesn’t know if they still live. He curls like that will protect him and doesn't scream anymore, too numb even to hate them for it.

Not even when Grindelwald takes his clothes, takes his lips, takes… well, whatever he wants. Makes him bleed, makes him twitch. Makes him keen, terrified, when Grindelwald's wand forces him hard, when the madman flirts with horrors that he can hardly even conceive outside of panicked rejection. He shivers when Grindelwald only laughs, freezes under the teeth-lined kisses that Grindelwald pressed to his throat, his chest, his face--

And then again. He remembers how to whimper the second time around, with Grindelwald’s voice in his ears, rattling around his head.  Murmuring lies in the shape of love words, pretty poison drops that burn acid bright, bruises that ghost over the points of pain that greedy fingers bite into his skin.

And once more, just before someone comes with breakfast. He’s forgotten how to whimper again, wishes he didn’t know quite so well how to breathe.


End file.
